Chapter 1.5

The gardens in front of the Red Brick Government Office were packed with people, more than Mamoru ever expected. Families and early risers had set up picnics on arid lawns, while other onlookers stood on red brick roads and waited in packs that stretched out and past the front gate. Surrounding the crowd were formidable interlocking panels overseen by dozens of men in military and private security uniforms.

“The arrival of Castle Gramarye is now imminent,” the closest J-Alert system announced. “Residents who are observing the scheduled descent should proceed at once to their designated observation areas...”

“All this just to see a tea party?” Mamoru wondered aloud.

“This really is your first time, huh, Mamoru?” Miyuki sighed. “Well, as much as I’d love to show you the ropes, we have work to do first. Come on.”

Miyuki and Mamoru pushed through the crowd to the head of the old office. The usual blue flag atop its verdigris dome had been lowered due to hazardous wind conditions. A fierce gust howled against the polycarbonate wind shields surrounding the observation camp.

The skies had turned storm gray, and the clouds moved in a panic. From where Mamoru was standing, he couldn’t sense if something moved behind them, stirring them to stampede across Sapporo.

“Hold it,” a police officer near the wind shields approached. “I’m sorry, but the two of you need to turn away. This area’s restricted.”

“I’m Miyuki Kobayashi,” Miyuki revealed a badge attached to a lanyard around her neck. “We’re with Section Eight. Mrs. Samukawa cleared us to be here.”

Miyuki could tell that the officer considered pressing the issue, but he scanned her official badge title, government mage, and took a sizable step backwards.

“Right,” he muttered. “You’re good.”

“Where’d you get that?” Mamoru whispered as they passed. “The badge, I mean.”

“You were supposed to pick it up from the receptionist the day after the interviews,” Miyuki answered. “You don’t remember?”

He didn’t. After all, Mamoru had been too busy deciding whether to quit.

Miyuki pressed her hand against the closest shield. It stretched to the same height as the old red brick headquarters, then curved horizontally to form arcs where turbulent winds were supposed to glance off.

The material felt sturdy enough, but Miyuki felt something was off. As the clouds swirled above the families playing on the office grounds, Miyuki realized it wasn’t so much the quality of the panels, but the quantity of them. The interlocking structures formed one tight ring around the camp, but Miyuki had expected more layers.

A lot more.

“Why are there so few shields?” Miyuki turned around at the officer. “Is this it?”

“Yes,” he answered, puzzled. “We were told this was more than enough for the predicted typhoon.”

Miyuki flipped her radio out of her pocket.

“Kazama, are you there?” she said. Static answered her. “Kazama? Where’d she go? Sir, can you get Mrs. Samukawa on the radio?”

“I’m just a footsoldier,” the officer chuckled nervously. “I don’t think she’ll answer me if I hop on the–.”

Miyuki spied the radio on the officer’s waistband and snatched it.

“Give me that,” she growled. “Mrs. Samukawa? Are you there? This is Miyuki Kobayashi from Section Eight.”

After a surprisingly brief crackle, a familiar voice came through the radio.

“This is Samukawa. What’s Section Eight doing on this frequency?”

“Sorry, I took someone’s radio,” Miyuki replied. “Mrs. Samukawa. Why are there so few storm panels here at the Government Office?”

A cautious pause.

“...What do you mean? The projections are very clear about wind strength at ground zero. If anything, the fortifications there are in excess of what we’re expecting.”

“Even if you include Lady Baba Yaga’s effect on the imaginarium?”

“...Her event was public, Miss Kobayashi, as was all the data regarding the imaginarium density at her ascension. Yes, we considered her. We’re not amateurs here.”

“No, no,” Miyuki groaned. “That’s not what I meant. Sorry, let me get straight to the point.”

This was why Miyuki could never deal with so few non-academics. They could never tell when her questions were rhetorical.

“The storm that’s about to hit Sapporo is larger than your supposed projections,” Miyuki said. “You’ve misread your own data, Mrs. Samukawa.”

“But the models show–”

“No, listen to me,” Miyuki interrupted. “Look, it’s hard to explain, but you can’t think about imaginarium scientifically. It doesn’t work. It’s not like those fantasies you read about mana based systems. Scientists think they have existing workable models where they reduce imaginarium to particles, which allows them to talk about it in terms of mass, density, or volume. These are all coincidentally and conceptually useful but are not viable models of how imaginarium actually works.”

Another pause, heavier this time.

“How bad is it going to be?” Kanna asked.

An air siren blared. This time, Mamoru could see the outline of something weighing down the clouds. Its shadow stretched in every direction while the clouds folded back into the heavens like they were being sucked in by a vacuum.

“Incredible,” Mamoru murmured. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Imaginarium defies normal causality,” Miyuki explained. “It accumulates during each tea party as an anticipatory function of the Question that an Egregore intends to ask the Mysteries, and from the looks of it…”

Her gaze turned skyward, to the scarlet conflagrations ransacking the heavens, to the jagged white flashes resembling lightning, to the stretches of marbled ultramarine that tore open the sky and spilled a screeching squall over the clouds. The tempest fell upon the wind shields with an unexpected crack. Parents rushed to calm their surprised children. The officers at their posts shared nervous glances.

Miyuki’s heart both fluttered and sank.

“Lady Baba Yaga intends to ask a world shattering Question,” she whispered.

“Forget about explaining the details to me,” Kanna snapped. “Just tell me how bad you think the storm is going to be.”

“I don’t know,” Miyuki shook her head. “Maybe if you had at least five times the protection you’ve set up here, I would have felt at least a little more secure.”

“...How long do you need then?”

For once, it was Miyuki’s turn to not understand a question.

“Mrs. Samukawa?” she blinked.

“You said we’d need at least five times the protection, yes? I’m assuming that’s also the case at the other observation sites?” Kanna said. “How long can you hold off the storm as we move additional panels in place?”

Miyuki looked again at the encroaching storm, then at Mamoru, who looked nothing short of mesmerized by the sight of roaring colors.

“I can’t guarantee anything,” she responded, “but with Fujimoto, I think I can buy you several minutes. But Mrs. Samukawa, you’re asking mages–”

Mamoru snapped out of his daze.

“Huh?” He raised an eyebrow. “Did you just call my name?”

“Miss Kobayashi, please don’t misunderstand me,” Kanna said. “I’m not a senseless ideologue, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Let’s not waste each other’s time and focus on protecting Sapporo.”

The radio squelched off. Miyuki tossed it back to the officer who had been nervously standing next to her after she had seized it from him.

“Mamoru,” Miyuki said. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not sure if I heard you right,” Mamoru pointed at the rupturing sky. “We’re supposed to stop that?”

“Not stopping, just stalling,” Miyuki said. “It’s why Captain Nakamura assigned us, I think. She’ll temper the worst of the storm. We pick up the stragglers.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It is easy,” Miyuki grinned. She bent close to him, close enough that Mamoru smelled scented patchouli and a touch of fresh mint. “With your help, Mamoru, we can do anything.”

“Are you making fun of me?” Mamoru scowled. “Did you already forget what happened on the last mission?”

“What?” Miyuki tilted her head. “That you failed so badly that you came in the next day with a written resignation letter?”

“Wha–” Mamoru’s cheeks ignited.

“You played with your pockets so much, it was impossible not to guess what you were trying to hide,” Miyuki shrugged. “But don’t you know? That’s why the captain sent you here.”

“What do you mean?”

A sudden gale crashed against the wind shields. Its thunderous crack sent an old feeling down Mamoru’s back. He saw again the gleam of that rusty sword beneath the moon. He saw a version of the past, a past without Miyuki, where its serrated fringes split his spine and spilled blood over grass like twilight dew.

Stupid body, he winced. Move.

But Mamoru discovered that terror, however brief, did not yield simply because one tried to will it away. It lingered on his skin, wracked his knees with shivers colder than any winter, and invaded his mind with innumerable, cynical what-ifs.

A warmth found its way into his hands. Miyuki cradled his palms between her fingers. Like an arm cuff measuring one’s blood pressure, Mamoru’s muscles relaxed in slow measured beats. A second gust battered the polycarbonate frames, but Mamoru felt nothing but Miyuki’s soft touch.

“Mamoru,” she asked. “Are you going to run away again? Or are you actually going to make a difference this time?”